Missouri Set For Final March Madness Without Legal Sportsbooks
Missouri citizens have no legal sportsbooks offered to place bets as the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament ideas off today. That will alter for the 2026 tournament.
Though Missouri citizens authorized legal books on the 2024 ballot, gamblers can't position their first bets until fall 2025. In the meantime, Show Me State consumers looking to wager with a legal sportsbook will have to bet in a nearby state.
Why Missouri will not have legal sportsbooks this March
After years attempting to legalize sports betting through Missouri's statehouse, advocates including the state's significant professional sports teams and leading national sportsbooks, pressed for wagering approval through a 2024 ballot step. After surviving a late legal obstacle and eight-figure opposition campaign, the measure passed by a few thousand votes out of almost 3 million tallies cast.
Regulators charged with executing legal sports betting wished for books to go live by summer season 2025. Missouri's Secretary of State delayed that when he rejected a petition to accelerate the regulatory process.
Even in a best-case situation, it was unlikely Missouri would have books certified before March Madness began.
The regulative process consists of promoting key rules such as financial disclosures, licensure certification, background checks, occasion wagering eligibility and a host of other choices. Each book also needs to be checked separately.
In the majority of the 30 other states with legal online sports betting, the time from legal wagering approval to first wager has been around six-to-nine months.
A targeted summer approval would have been one of the United States' quicker turn-arounds. The present timeline tasks the first books to begin in October or November of this year ahead of a lawfully mandated Dec. 1 go-live date.
Missouri betting options for the 2025 tournament
Missouri bettors happy to cross state lines to bet with a legal sportsbook have several alternatives.
Missouri's two locations, St. Louis and Kansas City, border Illinois and Kansas, respectively. Both states have multiple legal sports wagering choices and are a comparatively simple drive (and even stroll) from the particular Missouri cities' downtown cores.
Iowa, Kentucky and Tennessee do not share significant population centers but provide a number of the same major online sportsbook brands. Arkansas enables statewide mobile wagering but only with three regional brands connected with the state's casinos. Nebraska only permits in-person wagering while Oklahoma has no legal sportsbook wagering choices.
Missourians looking to wager on the 2025 March Madness might also position agreements with exchange wagering platforms such as Kalshi and Robinhood.
Future Missouri sports betting
By 2026, Missouri is set to have approximately a dozen significant sportsbooks, most or all expected to be live ahead of that year's Super Bowl and NCAA Tournament.
FanDuel and DraftKings, which combined contributed more than $30 million to the Missouri sports wagering tally step, both announced public objectives to launch in the state. BetMGM, the nation's No. 3 operator by manage behind the duo, likewise plans to go reside in the state.
Caesars, which moneyed the opposition project over issues about licensing gain access to structure, would likewise be placed to go live. Other live books in surrounding states consisting of BetRivers, ESPN BET, bet365, Fanatics and Hard Rock could likewise be amongst the new operators.
Once live, Missouri sportsbooks will let in-state bettors place wagers on Show Me State athletic programs consisting of the University of Missouri. This contrasts with Illinois, which prohibits bettors physically located within its borders to bet on in-state college teams.